Tag: bronchitis

I wrote 14 posts this year. Sometimes I wonder if I’m still a blogger.

What can I say? It’s been a hell of a year. A lot of this is known to people; we all heard about the election, and no matter how you feel about the results, it was a big damn deal. We all know about the celebrities who died; Carrie Fisher’s passing hit me particularly hard.

For us, we’ve had a triathlon to train for (Mr. Sandwich) and support (Baguette and me), multiple IEP meetings, changes in leadership at Baguette’s school, lost teeth (the sixth came out this week), family drama that warrants assessment, and lice.

Oh, the lice.

We were supposed to travel to visit my dad and stepmom for Thanksgiving. But I had a bad cold, and based on much prior experience of making that trip sick, we decided not to. As it turned out, that was a wise decision. Because on the day we would have been driving, I discovered that Baguette and I had lice.

We called a service to come over to the house that night and comb all three of us, and scheduled the follow-up for the Monday after the holiday. But as it turned out, we couldn’t wait that long, so we also went to a lice-combing salon on Friday for an additional come-through.

There are, by the way, a lot of businesses providing this service in Los Angeles.

That was our hair; we also commenced on an astonishing amount of laundry, washing and drying on hot things that we often don’t even put in the dryer. We vacuumed and lint-rollered and bagged and froze and did everything we could think of to halt this in its tracks.

It was exhausting. It was not a vacation. It was not a break. But ultimately, we were successful–although we now are completely fixated on checking our heads on a regular (and probably unnecessarily frequent) basis.

We delayed our trip, planning to visit the week after Christmas. And then I got bronchitis. So we didn’t go. But we did have Christmas dinner with Mr. Sandwich’s parents, as planned. That was nice for a bit, and then discretion is the better part of valor, and also of family harmony on Christmas.

Now we are two weeks into Baguette’s three-week winter break from school. In case you were wondering, three weeks is too long. It’s not that I don’t love and value the time with her–it’s that we don’t have any other care for her, which means we have to take more days off from work, and it means that her routine is significantly disrupted in ways that are very difficult for her. And with my bronchitis that first week of the break, we didn’t do a great job of creating a different routine. We’re getting into one now, but that still doesn’t keep us from having rough days.

Long story short? I am ready for a new year. So Happy New Year to all of you!

And know that while I may not be able to stay up the whole time (among other things, Baguette got me up at around 4:00 this morning), I am definitely feeling this:

Last Wednesday night, I felt bad. It felt like the beginnings of the flu, with muscle aches. I emailed work and told them I’d be taking a sick day. This is very unusual. I don’t usually decide until the morning. But I was pretty sure the night before.

Thursday morning I had chills, and that afternoon I spiked a fever. I felt so bad that I didn’t take Tylenol until Mr. Sandwich came home, because I needed him to get the Tylenol from the bathroom cabinet. Getting it myself was too hard.

Then I started throwing up. That was fun.

I took another sick day on Friday. Saturday evening, we went to urgent care. They said it was probably bronchitis, gave me antibiotics, and told me to see my regular doctor on Monday and stay home from work until Wednesday.

I felt too sick on Monday, but I made an appointment for Tuesday.

On Tuesday, our street was being slurry-sealed. That meant we had to park around the corner. It’s not too far, but it’s not as close as our actual driveway. I headed out to the car, and as I walked down the street, could not help but notice the four police officers and maybe a sheriff, plus the guy sitting in the back seat of one of the police cars. Possibly this explained the helicopters I’d heard earlier. I also realized that my wallet was not in my bag. Since the situation on the corner appeared to be coming to a close, I decided to check the car. My wallet wasn’t in the car. I went back to the house, just as the guy in the police car was allowed to get out of the police car. My wallet wasn’t in the house, either. That meant it was probably in the car Mr. Sandwich had taken to work (long story short, it was). But I didn’t want to drive to the doctor’s office without my wallet, and I didn’t want to walk back to the car. So I punted.

On Wednesday, my doctor gave me a new antibiotic and an inhaler. You know it’s going well when you get an inhaler. She also said that if I wasn’t feeling better on Friday, to call back and she’d send me for a chest x-ray.

I wasn’t feeling better. Weirdly, I kind of had to argue to get the chest x-ray. But I got it, and you know what?

I’ve got pneumonia.

I’ve also got yet another antibiotic (don’t worry, every time I get a new one, I stop taking the old one, AND I’m taking probiotics). And two days in, I’m still freaking exhausted and coughing. My left lung still feels like it’s stuck to itself when I breathe.

Now, mind you, through all of this, Baguette still needs to go to school. And while I may want to spend all day sitting on the couch, she really can’t. So there are still outings and whatnot.

But after stocking up on Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and then making minestrone, I have easy food for the next few days. So that’s good.